Agent brought down Capone

Arnold Sagalyn, a onetime assistant to crimefighter Eliot Ness, who later used his positions in federal law enforcement to advocate for nonlethal police practices and a centralized call system, which led to the creation of the 911 emergency number, died Monday at his home in Washington. He was 99.

His wife, Louise Sagalyn, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.

After stints in journalism, law enforcement and business, Sagalyn was named director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Law Enforcement Coordination in 1961.

He served as the U.S. representative to Interpol, the international policing agency, and later had a staff position with the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

In March 1968, the commission issued a report about the root causes of urban crime, notably institutional racism and poverty, and concluded that the country “is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”

He also helped draw up recommendations for a nationwide emergency response number, using his frustrating experience of “waiting up to 75 rings without an operator responding,” as he wrote in an unpublished memoir.

Sagalyn included his findings in letters to the Federal Communications Commission, which spurred action ultimately leading to the establishment of the 911 emergency calling system.

Ness had previously been a U.S. Treasury agent who helped bring down Al Capone and other crime lords during the Prohibition era and who was portrayed by Robert Stack on the hit 1959-63 television show “The Untouchables” and later by Kevin Costner in a 1987 film version.